 Workplace Knowledge Flows*Jason J Sandvik, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert and Christopher T Stanton The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2020, vol. 135, issue 3, 1635-1680 Abstract: We conducted a field experiment in a sales firm to test whether improving knowledge flows between coworkers affects productivity. Our design allows us to compare different management practices and isolate whether frictions to knowledge transmission primarily reside with knowledge seekers, knowledge providers, or both. We find large productivity gains from treatments that reduced frictions for knowledge seekers. Workers who were encouraged to seek advice from a randomly chosen partner during structured meetings had average sales gains exceeding 15%. These effects lasted at least 20 weeks after the experiment ended. Treatments intended to change knowledge providers’ willingness to share information, in the form of incentives tied to partners’ joint output, led to positive—but transitory—sales gains. Directing coworkers to share knowledge raised average productivity and reduced output dispersion between workers, highlighting the role that management practices play in generating spillovers inside the firm. Date: 2020 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:135:y:2020:i:3:p:1635-1680. Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article The Quarterly Journal of Economics is currently edited by Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan Nunn, Andrei Shleifer and Stefanie Stantcheva More articles in The Quarterly Journal of Economics from President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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